Lea Michele: There is an empowerment that comes with grief

Jaclyn is an Idaho native who currently lives in Milwaukee. Having worked in radio, TV and as a newspaper reporter, she is an avid pop culture and news junkie. She also has a passion for photography and cooking (but is still learning to ...

"I really feel like I'm still trying to figure out all of this. It's been only a few months," Michele told Ellen DeGeneres.

Michele and the other cast members of Glee, where Monteith also worked, returned to film the new season very soon after his death. But for the actress, being with her second family was what she needed at the time.

"Going to work is no harder than being at home and being in the house and opening up a closet and seeing a pair of shoes," she said, according to People.

Michele's other friends also helped her with Monteith's death. She said her mom has experienced a lot of loss in her life and explained to her that "at one point that there is an empowerment that comes with grief. At some point you find it. It's very hard, but you will find it," Michele said.

"Grief goes with you every day, whatever you're doing, when there's great moments, when there's hard moments," she added. "So I'd rather, for me, be at work with the people that I love that are going through the same thing. And it obviously has its own triggers. But at the end of the day, I feel so safe there."

"I think at a certain point you can choose to sort of fall from this, or you can choose to rise," she explained. "And that's what I'm just trying to do. I know that that's what he would have wanted, to just do my best and to hopefully make something positive for where I go in the rest of my life."